First to 15: The USA Fencing Podcast

Ari Simmons on What Fencing Teaches About Grit and Avoiding Burnout

Episode Summary

Ari Simmons — U.S. men’s epee standout, coach, mentor, and co-host of The Direct Elimination Podcast — opens up about the long road from dead-last youth finishes to cadet world champion, four-time All-American at Notre Dame, and senior-team regular with his sights on LA 2028. We dig into building a stronger U.S. men’s epee culture (mentorship, professionalism, teamwork), navigating college recruiting, staving off burnout with intention and process goals, and why paying it forward to the next generation matters.

Episode Notes

Season 2, Episode 13
Guest: Ari Simmons — U.S. Men’s Epee; Cadet World Champion; 4x All-American (Notre Dame); Coach/Mentor; Co-host, The Direct Elimination Podcast

What we cover

Origin story: from Alliance Fencing Academy kid to cadet world champ

Why the sport still “gives him life”—and how fencing builds the person off the strip

Closing the junior-to-senior gap in U.S. men’s epee: mentorship, shared training, professionalism

The Seth Kelsey effect: a national coach who’s been there—and still laces up

College path: the candid Notre Dame story (gap year, fit, and what coaches now look for)

Burnout: intention, process-over-outcomes, compartmentalizing roles, and taking real time off

Mentoring with KM Fencing: common trends he sees (and why some kids need more play)

Content, community, and making the sport more accessible to the next generation

Lightning round: dream podcast guest, favorite cities, music, and the “favorite touch” series

Timestamps

0:00 — Intro: resilience, one-touch margins, and LA 2028

1:29 — Alliance beginnings; why he stayed when wins didn’t come early

6:50 — Culture shift: mentorship and sharing across generations

8:24 — Junior vs. senior success; what’s changing in men’s epee

10:50 — Seth Kelsey’s impact and the team’s buy-in

14:42 — College recruiting: honesty about fit; advice for today’s landscape

23:12 — Why commitment matters to college coaches now

24:35 — Avoiding burnout: intention, process goals, real rest

31:00 — KM Mentorship: trends (pressure, expectations) and helping athletes thrive

40:26 — Lightning round: guests, cities, hobbies, playlist, favorite video

Quotable

“Fencing is a mirror—how I sharpen discipline, humility, and honesty on the strip shows up in my life off it.” — Ari Simmons

“A rising tide raises all ships: when we work together, men’s epee gets better.” — Ari Simmons

Call to action
Follow Ari on Instagram @AriSimmons and check out The Direct Elimination Podcast for athlete-to-athlete conversations on grit, failure, and purpose. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate/review First to 15 to help more fencers find the show.

Credits
Host: Bryan Wendell • Guest: Ari Simmons

Episode Transcription

SEASON 2 EPISODE 13

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:01] BW: Imagine dedicating yourself to a sport where success can hinge on a single touch and where every win or loss is an opportunity to learn. Ari Simmons is one of the top US epee fencers. He's a coach, he's a natural storyteller, he's an influencer in this community, and he has his eyes set on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. Ari first made his mark by winning a cadet world championship, and then he went on to become a four-time All-American at Notre Dame, helping the fighting Irish clinch some NCAA team titles while he was there. He's also represented Team USA on the international stage at many different levels and continues to compete on the senior circuit.

Now he's training for LA 2028 where he's balancing the grind of an Olympic life with life outside the strip. He's also shaped the next generation, he's been a coach at Duke and the Air Force Academy, and he's a co-host of his own podcast, The Direct Elimination Podcast, which is a great listen. He's talking to fellow athletes about grit and failure and purpose, and it's a great opportunity to grow and understand the sport even more.

For Ari and for a lot of us, fencing might be this niche sport, but we've seen that its lessons about resilience and strategy and finding joy and fencing are universal. Ari, this is a great time to talk to you. Welcome to the podcast.

[0:01:17] AS: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Bryan. Never met with you virtually. I've gotten to hang out with you in person for a few times. Excited to be a guest on your podcast and answering any questions you might have.

[0:01:29] BW: I've got a lot. We like to start with the origin story. I think for you, it's an interesting one, because you found success on the senior circuit, I guess at this point, it's more than 10 years ago, right? You were a cadet world champion. What got you into fencing and has kept you around for so long?

[0:01:48] AS: Great question. Thanks for asking. I'd love to talk about my origin story. This guy is probably sick of hearing his name, but Anton Piskovatskov, another great fencer from Alliance Fencing Academy, is one of my lifelong best friends. We were friends since we were about four years old. At the age of eight, his, well, when we were eight, his mom married a guy who happened to become, and already was, or become, you know. That's up in there. But it's Andrey Geva, who is one of the best epee coaches in the world. At the time, he owned a fencing club, and at the time got forced into fencing. Two years later, after hanging out, going and seeing some competitions locally, my mom said, “You should try that out.” He convinced one of our other really close friends to try, and my sister got forced to start with me. It was off to the races.

We did a summer camp in 2007. Since then, I haven't thought much about other sports. I do love basketball, but fencing really became what dominated my mental space. I loved the ways in which the sport challenged me. I loved the ways that it enabled you to compete with other people as an individual, but you train with them as a team. Although you're out there on your own when you're competing for the most part outside of team events, when you're at the club training, it's a family environment. You feel like you're part of a team, a large organization, and really touched on a lot of the things that are important in both individual competition and team work. I definitely love that.

From an early day's fencing, I love the game, and I love the ability to go there and play with my friends and spend time as a young kid. I definitely didn't have a high level of skill, or performance at a young age. I can't say that winning is what kept me in there. I got dead last in my first tournament, maybe my first couple of tournaments. I was performing lower on the rankings relative to some of the other fencers at the club. Anton in particular was always a top performer for our age group, through post-college, right? He was great.

A certain point, something clicked in me to take the sport a bit more seriously, whether it was being told that I'm too much of a goofball, I talk too much, I'm not taking it seriously, or just seeing my teammates find a lot of success in this sport that I was going to the same competitions and performing really poorly, and seeing them take it more seriously and come into practice and constantly losing. When I had the resources to improve, could have been getting a new coach in Sergey Danilov when he came to Alliance in 2010 after about three years of me fencing.

But none of that is what keeps me in it today. I stick around in fencing, because the game still gives me a lot of life and invigorates me. I found that over the course of many years, my commitment to pushing myself in the sport of fencing and all the things that have come out of that have really pushed me to become the best version of myself off the strip and just as a person. It's helped me find balance and it's been a tool and a mirror for myself to look into and understand who I really am in that moment and what I apply to improve myself in fencing, whether it's discipline, or being brutally honest with myself, or facing loss and having to grow, or being humble through wins, or being passionate about something, whatever it is, patient. Those traits that you can sharpen via a sport, or a tool, or passion like fencing, how can you become a better version of yourself off the strip? I really love that.

Then you mentioned this in your intro, interacting with the next generation is something that I've made very important goal for myself. I found that when I was growing up, YouTube was just starting to become a thing and we had awesome resources, like CyrusofChaos posting a lot of videos on the Internet for us to watch fencing. That being said, there weren't a lot of opportunities for fencers at the younger level and even at the higher level to be able to interface and network with and get into the minds of top athletes across multiple generations and their idols were untouchable. The people that I would watch at NACs, Seth Kelsey and Soren, Thompson and all these guys, Cody Mattern, a long list, and the international guys.

There was no face-to-face interaction that I was having with them as a lower-level fencer, and I was simply inspired by them from what I saw. I never got to hear about the way they think. I never got to have any lessons, or mentorship from those high up guys. I think that one of the pieces that has really hurt men's epee in the US over the last decade and a half has been a lack of proper mentorship, probably, for the younger athletes. We've had a lot of really talented athletes as you see at the junior level winning so many medals.

We just have fairly disconnected older contingent of fencers. Not that it's a bad thing or a good thing, they just weren't focused on mentoring the younger guys in a constructive and productive way, and we'd see a steep drop off after college and this every man for himself mentality. It didn't sit right with me, and I really felt that I could have benefited more from somebody who had been in my shoes prior to me, helping me and my peers guide ourselves, or help guide us through the treacherous waters of becoming an adult. I think that I love doing that and paying it forward.

Obviously, there are plenty of ways in which I could have done it better and could continue to do better. But hopefully, my efforts inspire the next group of guys to continue doing that even more so and iterating on it, because not only do we have a strong network of talented athletes, we have a strong network of athletes who could truly be the best in the world.

[0:08:24] BW: Yeah, I think that's well said. Something you said is really interesting there, which is our cadet men's epee and our junior men's epee teams are so strong. But it has been a while since men's epee has won an Olympic medal, right? When we think about the drop off there, coupled with the fact that epee just naturally seems to be and you would know better than me, seems to be a sport where the world champions are people in their 30s, instead of in their 20s, like in maybe foil and saber. How do we bridge that gap in team USA fencing from the cadet and junior success that we're having with men's epee to the senior level? I'd love to hear from you especially, because you're part of that senior level team, right? You're not just talking at it from an outsider. You're someone who's there with the 12 guys traveling around the world to compete.

[0:09:15] AS: Yeah, great question. I think that everything is always changing, right? People like Sam Imrek and the others, even your Tristan Szapary, these very, very talented, motivated, and in many ways, mature for their age athletes starting to become a lot stronger at a younger age, become more professional about the way they conduct themselves and finding the solution. You have Italian guy in Matteo Galassi, same age as Sam, Mahmoud El-Sayed and Muhammad El-Sayed both performing at an incredibly high level into their early 20s.

Overall, men's epee seems to be trending downwards as it just becomes more athletic and crazy, which is fun. There is still the trend where people who stick around longer and just get that experience tend to have it clicked later on. That's good for people like myself who still want the great things for themselves in the late 20s and early 30s. Answer your question, I believe we're already doing that. It's a pretty simple solution, I think, as a team. The most important thing is working together. I think that it's not that we never worked together, right? It's just a matter of it being a more collective goal for the group and an easy factor to point to, two factors to point to for why this might be happening now. Because you are seeing in growth. You're seeing a lot more individual results come out and you're seeing the team finally start to break through the drought of wins that we've had.

That comes from two reasons. One, you have to give credit to the athletes who are all buying in, most likely due to Los Angeles 2028 being right around the corner in the US. We know the implications of that with the team slot that if the team doesn't qualify and we've shown enough potential, that we could potentially get one of these at large, or wild card bids.

[0:11:21] BW: As the hosts, right?

[0:11:22] AS: As the host. Excuse me, yeah. As a host country. That's why it's motivating for people. We're seeing a lot of buy-in from the athletes. A lot of athletes are sticking around. A lot of athletes are competing, trying to become stronger versions of themselves. That helps. We're also starting to work together in, especially in the New York area, but all around. You're seeing more collaborative efforts to improve, people not keeping secrets as much, because they realize that a rising tide is raising all ships. The second one being, honestly, our national coach, Seth Kelsey, is a former great men's epeeist. He is the best US men's eppeist in history if we look at it on paper.

[0:12:06] BW: Yeah. I think he got a fourth-place Olympic finish, right, which is the highest we've seen in maybe ever, or a long time, right?

[0:12:13] AS: Yeah. To my knowledge, we don't have a men's epee Olympic medal from the US. But that was a great Olympic finish on top of that. Seth was one of the top 16 fencers in the world for a majority, if not all, of his senior career. Seth's mentorship and just him being around and being invested and showing that he knows fencing, he's showcased, he's even suited up on occasion and beat some of our top guys, just for fun. Not because he's like, “Oh, you guys need to get beat down.” But really, there was a Monday and most of the fencers during this camp were at work, and some of the guys who didn't have jobs, let's say it's four people, or five people were there in the morning for a training camp. Seth said, “I’ll fence you guys.” He showed them the work.

He's definitely still got it, and that's inspiring just to see someone of that level of expertise on the strip and that level of team experience. He’s also a team world champion, a team world champion silver medalist, which is something that even many of our greats right now across the other weapons can't claim. I think that having his mentorship has been really disarming for a lot of the fencers that typically have their guard up, because he's very calm and his presence is very warm, all things considered. He wants to be there. He wants us to succeed and he wants in an unbiased way, just wants to see everyone bring up the best of themselves.

I believe that those are two pieces of this answer to your question of how can we keep up. I mean, really, it's teamwork and it's everyone taking themselves a little bit more professionally in their preparation. Everything was really siloed and people, I don't think, were as professional as they could be. We saw Curtis McDowald and Jake Hoyle reach a really high level right before the Tokyo Olympics. I believe that they were taking it pretty professionally at the time. That fell off. Jake stopped fencing, and we just hadn't seen a high level of professionalism from men’s epee. We saw a large gap. We saw a lot of younger fencers coming in not knowing how to manage that.

Through the years of getting experience, mentorship from the older guys and everyone collectively buying into taking it more seriously, we've seen that uptick, and we're only going to see more. My prediction is that it's going to continue to improve on the individual front, as well as the team. That's probably the most we can do here in the US at the moment with the system that we have at our disposal.

[0:14:42] BW: Yeah. Obviously, I know USA fencing is always trying to do more, support more athletes as much as our budget allows. I want to talk about your climbing the level. You talked about how at your first tournament, you finished dead last and obviously turned things around. But I'm most curious about your recruiting from Notre Dame, because a lot of people who listen to this are interested in that journey, how someone gets on the radar of a top program like that. So, if you can take us back to when you were making that decision and how you stood out to catch the eye of Notre Dame and end up at this program that is legendary within the world of collegiate fencing.

[0:15:22] AS: Yeah. I actually had a very interesting roundabout way of getting to Notre Dame and I'm happy to share it. It's not the recommended path for most, because I did some stuff that I don't recommend doing. I don't think that I necessarily shared in the struggle that a lot of kids face with trying to get their fencing and the results viewed by college coaches. The reason being, recruiting used to start your senior year. It's now expanded to the summer before your junior year. It used to be one year later. You didn't really start talking to coaches, or anything like that, until months before you apply, or less. Then you apply and then you're done.

On top of that, my parents never really pushed fencing as a way to get into college. I see that as a huge red flag for many kids starting fencing right now. I feel comfortable coming out here and saying that. I think that many kids nowadays are being pushed to fence and being really pushed their limits by their parents, rather than their desire to improve in the sport and their coaches. I think that for me, my parents allowing me – they said, “We're not going to spend money on fencing if you get kicked out of classes and if we know you're not trying.” But if you're putting in your best effort and your coaches say that you're ready to compete at these competitions and all this stuff, they put a lot of trust in their coaches. The coaches at Alliance said, “Ari’s ready to go to this tournament.” My parents said, “If you think it's worth it, then we'll make possible for him to go.”

They let me fall in love with the sport and deal with loss and then push myself. That, ultimately, led to some really cool stuff. I was very lucky to have great coaches, great training partners and ultimately, lucky to perform well when I performed well, winning Cadet World Championship, my sophomore year of high school, put me on the radar for all the college coaches. At that point, it became a lot more about, what are your grades? What are your test scores? At the time, we didn't have test optional. We also didn't have as many serious college coaches. I'll go ahead and say that.

The landscape nowadays, as the athlete pool has become a lot more saturated with high level fencers, the college pool has also become a lot more saturated with college coaches that take their program seriously. That has come from a variety of factors. Fencing is growing, athletic departments are taking it more seriously. It just was a different game back then. My senior year, I committed to going to University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business. I just really wanted to go to a college. They, along with some other schools, said, “Hey, we want you. You have the test scores, you have the fencing. We'd love to have you.” I said yes.

I visited a few of them. Didn't really go during the school year. I think I spent a day during summer at three different campuses and just made a decision based off of whatever 17-year-old version of myself was capable of putting at the table, which was not very much, I'm going to be honest. Not a lot of self-awareness, not a lot of understanding of what my needs would be, or were, and not a lot of understanding of what I wanted for myself years from now, because I was a child.

Then got accepted to the University of Pennsylvania. That same year, I made the senior team, my senior year of high school. After many conversations with my teammates and my coaches, parents, I decided to take a gap year. During that gap year, I visited the University of Notre Dame to visit a girlfriend at the time, actually. Although that relationship ended, my visit to the school was really impactful. I saw the way that the team trained and I saw the way in which the school worked. I saw that the way that the – essentially, the ethos of the place that I was in, I saw the way that the athletes were handled after class. I went to study hall. There was a lot of work. You're in the middle of nowhere at Notre Dame. You don't have a big city life. You can't go and get in trouble most days of the week. There's not a lot of opportunity for that.

At the time, I was a rambunctious, young teenager. I started to have a little bit of self-awareness. This was a year after I had applied to college. Maybe I was getting older, maybe it was just because I was at Notre Dame and saw the team trained very professionally. It was a standout moment for me, because I realized that this was the real deal. I should probably go check out how the other teams are training. I went to University of Pennsylvania for a week as well, had a wonderful time, I have a lot of friends on that team at the time and I had a blast.

That being said, the way that the athletes were managed, there was a lot more autonomy for the athletes. The coursework seemed to be a pretty cutthroat at Wharton School of Business. The team didn't have the same level of professionalism that Notre Dame did. That was for myriad of factors. Probably, mostly being funding and scholarships. Notre Dame is really, it's a strong academic institution that prides itself greatly on its athletic pursuits, and it allows those athletic pursuits to then fund further things from the academic side.

Ivy leagues are completely different. They were a lot more on the, this is an Ivy League institution, you're lucky to be here and you can play sports. The team had some great epeeist on it, it just didn't seem to have the support that I felt that I needed in order to not fail out, if I'm being very honest with you.

[0:21:07] BW: That’s fair.

[0:21:09] AS: I made a decision. I was talking to Notre Dame. I talked to Coach Ma. I had a very upfront conversation with Coach Ma, which is really challenging. Again, I don't recommend this to anyone. It's very foolish that I didn't have the foresight to do this beforehand. But I had to tell him that this wasn't the school for me, and that I didn't think I would thrive there. Ultimately, had to have a conversation with him saying that I was going to be applying to another school. Then I went through, tried to get recruited by Notre Dame. They were able to shift some stuff around and make space for me. I was very lucky to be there. That's really how I went down.

As far as the attention of coaches, it was just via my overall personality, I'd say sportsmanship and ability to focus in competition, combined with strong test results. I didn't have the strongest grades. I didn't have bad grades, but I definitely had stronger test results and fencing results and grades. You need a combination of all three, after having worked in college, especially in this landscape. If you don't have the strongest fencing results, I think it's safe to understand you're not going to be a priority on the recruiting scene. It's just how it works. There are many good fencers nowadays. It's already hard enough for coaches to choose amongst the top fencers.

What you can do is you can really improve your test scores and grades and extracurriculars, if fencing is not your strong suit. Then out for walk-on-spot, or work with coaches, schools that are slightly less competitive to find a spot on their team. If you're a top-level fencer, you got to either have stellar test results, or good grades if you want to have a shot at the best schools. The reality of it is the better a fencer you are in competition, the more flexibility that affords you in your [inaudible 0:23:10] making decision.

[0:23:12] BW: Yeah, that makes sense.

[0:23:13] AS: All that to say, the more burned out that a kid gets before they get to college, the more likely they are to quit. Now another layer to this that has been introduced in the last five to six years, college coaches now also have to evaluate how seriously committed you are to the sport, which is –

[0:23:34] BW: Are they going to get four years out of you, in other words, right?

[0:23:36] AS: Yeah. They may get four years of commitment to their team, because all these teams are becoming more competitive. What I'll say is the college coaches are getting better at sifting through that.

[0:23:46] BW: Interesting.

[0:23:47] AS: Naturally, right? When there's competition, when there's adaptations to be made, college coaches are trying to understand who they can actually have on their team for four years and who's just fencing to get into college and then quit. What I'll say, my piece of advice to young fencers listening to this and to parents is really understand why you're doing this. The scene is getting a lot more cutthroat and competitive just to get on the college scene and to be a fencer in college and coaches, because of that want someone for three to four years, ideally four years with a committed attitude. That comes from not hating the sport by the time you go. That comes from both fencers and parents.

[0:24:35] BW: Well, this raises up an interesting question, because you have a lot of fencing in your life. You're competing, you're coaching, you're talking about it on podcast, you're doing some of the best fencing content on Instagram. If you don't follow Ari, be sure to do that right now. Pause the episode and do it. But how do you avoid getting burned out? Because you've been in the sport since you were eight, like you said. Imagine, well, maybe not, but are there days where you're like, “I just do not want to pick up an epee today”? Or is it still, do you have a tactic to keep this sport fresh for you?

[0:25:07] AS: I think that that's a great question, because it's impossible to not get burned out in a sport like fencing, but in any aspect of your life. Even you, Bryan, you don't show up to work every day, excited to be at work every single day to be doing it. Sometimes there are things that you need to do, because you've set out to do them. That being said, in order to fight burn out, the most important tool that I use is intentionality. The better you can understand yourself, your why, or your purpose and what your goals are in whatever it is that you're doing, the less likely it is that you're going to get burned out.

The second tool that falls right under that is making sure that many of those goals are process-oriented goals. So many people might really love something, truly. They're so passionate about it. They begin to channel that passion towards only outcomes. It's win, or everything is destroyed. That type of resulting is focusing on the only results, also leads to burnout. It's a really complex situation, because results are motivating, whether they're good or they're bad. It's a motivating factor. Ultimately, you need results to accomplish certain goals and it's a really nuanced balance. But having goals that are process-oriented, that are focused on your betterment, or improvement as a person, or an athlete, or an individual, or listener, or whatever it is. For example, I need to work on being a listener. I'm a yapper.

[0:26:51] BW: Which is good for a podcast, I will say.

[0:26:54] AS: Which is great for a podcast host. It's better for a podcast guest is what I'll say.

[0:26:59] BW: That’s fair. That’s fair.

[0:27:02] AS: Yeah. Really being intentional with my time. I think that all of these aspects of fencing for me are compartmentalized into categories. Although fencing is the umbrella that chains it all together, it's not all fencing to me. These conversations that we have, right now for me, they don't register as fencing. This is registered as some derivative of sports psychology, where I get to share my story but also talk about mentality with people. That's related to fencing, but it's not all fencing, because this type of stuff really helps you outside of the sport.

Then, there is the content. That's just brand building. That's fun. You're editing videos. You're creating with people. That's more art. Even though fencing is the subject matter. Then there is the actual fencing itself. Part of that is the game, the fencing, all that stuff. Then, for me, it's also sport. It's exercise. I like burning calories. I love pushing myself. That's the more all-encompassing of everything. Then there's traveling to competition, which is totally separate. I don't think of that as just fencing. That is a whole separate muscle that you're working on.

I think that's probably it. The other coaching aspect is a lot more about people and working with people and growing people and growing yourself. I think being intentional and understanding what your goal is with each one of these tasks, it is really important. You don't have to have a million tasks to get the fulfillment. I think, even if you're just fencing and doing school or working or whatever, I think understanding the intention of what it is you're doing, even for a practice, right? Am I here to just play? Am I here to practice winning? Am I here to work on the things that I just did in my lesson? Am I here to practice moments of grit, or intensity? There's so many different layers to it. Am I here to practice my parry forward? Whatever it is.

That allows you to keep practice fresh, because you can practice one thing for a week, or a day, or half a practice, or three weeks and then you cycle through it. Like, when you're lifting weights, or when you're doing projects that work, there are multiple projects, even though it's all work. Now for your job, you're meeting with me for this podcast. Maybe later, you have another podcast episode, or something else, and then you have stuff dealing with the social media side of US Fencing, where you're trying to do strategy planning, and then you're talking about writing an article and all this stuff and they're different projects. I mean, tension is similar but different. The more you can split it all up and direct your attention to a very specific piece at any given moment, the less you're going to get burned out of all that.

The last answer that I have is taking time off. It's really hard to do and it's really important for your mind. Just having things in your life and in your brain that consume energy that aren't just the expensive thing. I have very supportive and committed girlfriend that I love spending time with in a friend group. I've recently picked up fishing. When I was living in Colorado, I really loved hiking. I love going to concerts, or playing music, and doing things that really keep you away from fencing and that you can do for even a week, or two per year, or even longer, depending on who you are, where you're totally not engaged in fencing.

I think that time off allows you to gain the hunger, redevelop that I want to be here. Because it's so easy to be at the end of a season and just think, “Oh, my gosh. So many tournaments. My mind is jello. What's going on?” That time away is important, especially if it's intentional. If you're saying, I'm thinking this time these two weeks, or these three days here and you step away. It allows you to come right back in, like a weekend at work.

[0:31:00] BW: Yeah, I love that. I think that's really smart. Some of that advice is I imagine similar to what you're sharing with young fencers through the KM Fencing Mentorship Program. You're one of the mentors for that. I'd love to know what you get out of that, because it's obvious why someone would sign up to sit down with you, or Mariel Zagunis, or Lee, or Garrick for a conversation through that. Do you get something out of it as well, talking with these young fencers and also, are there trends, or themes that you're hearing from today's fencers? Maybe things that they're having to deal with that you as a teenage fencer, or as a younger fencer didn't necessarily have to have to worry about?

[0:31:43] AS: Yes, of course. First, I'll talk about the trends, actually.

[0:31:48] BW: Yeah, please.

[0:31:49] AS: I found that, and I've already spoken to it, I found a lot more burnout in young athletes today. Expectations seem to be higher when I was younger. We hadn't seen all the great things that US fencers can do at such a young age and all this stuff. If we're winning a couple of medals at World Championships for cadet and juniors, that's a huge win. Now, US is dominating the cadet and junior World Championships. The bar is just very –

[0:32:15] BW: Like a medal every day, right? Nine-day tournament.

[0:32:18] AS: Yeah. You were there.  You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're like, oh, our eighth gold medal in cadet epee. Back then, it was like, oh, my God, we have one World Champion. That is sick. The US just got a gold medal. That is amazing. It's still amazing. It's not detracting either hard work. It's just showing how high the bar has been set. That's across the board. I mean, I can't emphasize it enough. Parents are putting a lot of money into fencing, and thank you for supporting young athletes.

I think that we all know how expensive this sport is, and we all know how intense it is. That being said, they're burning the hell out of their fencers. They put so much pressure on 11-year-olds and 13-year-olds that I could have never imagined having on myself. When I was 13, I was a child. I don't think I could put it better than that. I was a child. I had a childhood. A lot of playing and playfulness is gone from this. That's a trend that is really hard to – I'm not saying that people all out don't love this sport. There's plenty of love for the sport, but it's so challenging to balance out with the high level of expectations on results and output from parents, from coaches, from future looking, ambition, and aspirations.

Kids just forget that they need to be kids and just grow naturally get experience doing this, and it's not all about fencing once when you're 13-years-old. It's about fencing Y14, and just having fun, going to local events. You can become the best. So many top athletes peak so much later. There's so much pressure on these athletes, because they're so – They're really amazing. fencers are the age of 13 now, that they're really weren't when I was there at that age. Those fencers, they stopped progressing at a much earlier age, because they just burned the candles so hard by the time they're 15 or 16. There's so many national, regional, whatever level of events for younger athletes. It's so intense. It's so intense.

That's a huge trend that I've seen and it's something that's really interesting, because having to help them manage that is a challenge, because at the end of the day, when you're working for KM fencing, people are paying you for advice to make those kids better. Sometimes it's so crazy when the advice is, got to play.

[0:34:47] BW: Yeah. Maybe slow down a little bit, right? It's hard to say that to someone who's saying, “We're going to put the pedal to the metal all the way to the Olympics, right?” Is everybody's dream.

[0:34:57] AS: Absolutely. That's one of the trends that I've seen that I just did not see when I was younger. Out of respect for your time, I probably won't go into other trends that I didn't see, but there are plenty of trends just across athletes in general that you do see. That's what makes this job something that I do enjoy doing, because there's so many things that I dealt with, regardless. It's totally agnostic to what level of athlete you are. The higher level that you get, obviously, the more relatable it becomes, but it's all the same for everyone. It's just the level is changing.

[0:35:32] BW: Yeah. I think that's well said.

[0:35:35] AS: Seeing those trends throughout my career has really been something that's helpful for me to give advice and weigh in on this experience I would share. As for what it gives me, I mean, I think a huge part of this sport is individual, right? There's a lot of fulfillment that I get from going and pushing myself to be great, to be the best version of myself, winning bouts that are challenging for me and accomplishing goals. The ego is still very much alive. That being said, I want to say, maybe it's always been in me, but specifically towards the end of college, I realized that I really, really, really, really enjoy helping other people navigate these same situations and do a better job than I do, and be a better version of themselves than I was of myself at that point in time.

You see multiple paths for each person. The more you can push them towards their better path, while keeping them engaged and loving the sport is so fulfilling. It's so gratifying. I got to really engage with that at the university level when I coached for the Air Force Academy and for Duke. Watching these young athletes push themselves and be the best version of themselves and grow was some of the most fulfilling of my memories within the sport. Although I stepped away from collegiate coaching to pursue individual results and other life endeavors, I wanted to stay engaged with it from an official perspective, where I'm actually in a space where people are working with me to improve.

I found that KM Fencing is a great platform for that, because me and Garrick are in a very similar boat. We have very different levels of experience. Not even going to pretend, they're amazing athletes and students and all the above. That being said, we share a passion and also, many years of experience of just fencing at a high level, where we can impact younger professors in a positive way. Whether it's with your review, whether it's mental preparation and training, whether it's understanding what drills, or situations you can put yourself in to improve, I find that that's what scratches that itch of helping impact younger fencer’s journey and in pushing them to be a better version of themselves. Because many clubs are either overloaded, or the coach has a lot of investment and they're really, they care about their fencers and they're pushing them to get better on the strip.

They don't have the time, or the energy, or in some cases the expertise to handle that mental, emotional side of being an athlete, as much as the mentors for KM Fencing, because those coaches are running business, they're giving lessons all day, they're running classes, and it's just, they don't have the corporate term is bandwidth.

[0:38:43] BW: Yeah. Right.

[0:38:45] AS: In other cases, the coach maybe isn't skilled enough, or doesn't have enough experience to help the athlete get to that next level, because the coach doesn't have the confidence, or they've never done it before. We do, as the KM Fencing mentors, we have – because again, we're not coaches in this conventional sense. We are mentors. We're simply these older athletes who have been down that path, regardless of level. We know what it takes to overcome these hurdles. We've pushed ourselves to be the best before. We've helped other people push themselves to be the best versions themselves before, and we can help bridge that gap for athletes to be intentional with their time and bridge what it is that their coaches are giving them and what they're able to do themselves, to the point where they can meet those standards and expectations set by coaches.

[0:39:40] BW: Yeah, I love that.

[0:39:42] AS: I love it. It's so fun.

[0:39:44] BW:  Yeah, I can tell you enjoy it and maybe it's a little bit oversimplifying to say like, you're able to help people learn from some of the mistakes that you made, because you've obviously had a lot of success, but you had some road bumps along the way. As we wrap up here, I'm going to get into the lightning round, which is these five quick questions that I like to ask. I've got some fun ones for you. We talked about The Direct Elimination Podcast, and I got to ask you, have a dream podcast guest, someone, and it can be anybody in fencing or not, someone you would love to have on the podcast and just like, and I hate this term, but I'm going to use it anyway, pick their brain for some time to hear what they would say. Who would be your dream guest?

[0:40:26] AS: Yeah, funny enough. Luckily, we've been able to hit already a lot of our dream guests in the fencing world, and we have many dream guests in the fencing world and we're going to get them all, like Pokemon.

[0:40:40] BW: Got to catch them all.

[0:40:41] AS: We’ll hear from Gerek Meinhardt. We're talking Keith Smart soon. We're getting a lot of legends out there. I'm actually going to give a non-conventional answer. For the fencing world, every star ever. That's a blanket answer, but it's the truth. We want to speak to you guys. If you consider yourself a fencing legend, hit us up. If we haven't talked to you yet, it's because we're trying to get everyone into New York City area. If you're in New York and I don't know about you, I apologize. Please reach out to Stephen and me @directelimination on Instagram.

[0:41:15] BW: We'll put it in the show notes as well, Ari, so we'll make sure people can find you.

[0:41:20] AS: Yeah, we're on Instagram. You can reach out to our personal accounts. But my real answer to this is a non-fencer, actually. Someone who has inspired me, as well as many other people in their own pursuits. It's a swimmer. His name is Nic Fink. He also represents the New York athletic club as I do in New York, but he does not live in New York. He is an Olympic medalist and a world champion in swimming. He won his first Olympic medal at the age of 31 after becoming a father, working a full-time job and training all to make his dreams come true. That is the poster boy for what it is that I'm doing and what it is some of my peers are doing. My co-host, Stephen Ewart is doing. He's so humble and truly a great athlete. I think that that is our dream guest. We've already shot him. He's not currently in the New York area, but having him on, he was the first person that I thought of that was a non-fencer that I wanted to speak to. Once we have him, that dream will be fulfilled.

[0:42:22] BW: I love that. Shout out to your co-host, too. I keep calling it your podcast. It's obviously, you and Stephen do a great job on it.

[0:42:29] AS: He's probably a better host than I am. He has the patience to listen to people speak. I just keep talking. Stephen's been a great co-host.

[0:42:37] BW: You need that balance. Okay, where's the best tournament city you've ever competed in? You've got to travel the world for fencing. Do you have a favorite?

[0:42:46] AS: Yeah, two answers. Tashkent, Uzbekistan is the most unique by a longshot. I don't know if I'll ever go again. I hope I do. It was really cool. 2015 Junior World Championships. I loved it for all the reasons that anyone would love going to a place that totally culture shocks them. The place that I love going to off our continent the most is Budapest, Hungary.

[0:43:09] BW: I love that. I've heard good things. Okay, you talked about fishing. If there was another hobby that you would devote a fencing amount of time to, and it can be fishing if you want, but let's say you stop fencing and you're going to put that same amount of time into another hobby or passion, what would it be?

[0:43:27] AS: Making music. Fishing.

[0:43:28] BW: Oh, really? Okay.

[0:43:30] AS: Fishing is a newfound hobby and will eventually, probably take over that answer. I love it so much. You guys spend time outdoors on stuff. But totally non-athletic related, not just music. Just making art in general. I'm getting a lot more into that and I really enjoy it. Just making it for media, music, videos, learning how to paint, that type of stuff.

[0:43:52] BW: That's great. We've talked a lot about the mental side, but let's get into a little bit with this fourth question about the physical side. Do you have a go-to warm-up song, or a ritual that gets you in the zone before competition? Speaking of music, what gets you focused?

[0:44:10] AS: Yeah. I alternate between hip-hop music and a very, very, very long blues playlist that I've curated. My favorite song last couple of years in competition is actually Muffin Man by Frank Zappa.

[0:44:22] BW: Interesting.

[0:44:24] AS: It is a hilarious song with an awesome guitar solo.

[0:44:28] BW: That's great. Okay, last question. You posted a lot of cool videos, including asking people for their favorite touch, and I just love that series. Can you pick one video that you would pin at the top of your account and say, “This is my favorite video I've ever made”? Yeah, I'd love to hear if you have one that you were like, “This is good. I'm loving this.”

[0:44:48] AS: Favorite fencing touch video?

[0:44:51] BW: Sure, or any video, but fencing touch is the one I'm most familiar with, because I probably watched all of them at this point.

[0:44:58] AS: Yeah, I appreciate it. I would say that my favorite one that I've made would probably be, oh, gosh. I've made a lot of those videos at this point. I think this is a cop-out answer, but the most recent one is always the most fun one, where you actually you put your time into it and then you move on. I try to put the same amount of effort into all of them, where I get to cater exactly, make sure that they're enjoying the video themselves that's getting put on the Internet.

I think I enjoyed making Kazuyasu Minobe’s the most, because he was the only fencer that I've interacted with for this video, where we actually had a translator. Kent Ioki, who was on the senior travel team at the time, we were at a training camp in Budapest. He came and he and his mother were translating for me, teaching me how to say the Japanese words for Manova and he was so patient. It was really fun to make just from that perspective, because I know I speak different languages and some of them. In many cases, I'm able to interact with athletes in English, or speak to them in Russian, which is one of the languages that I speak and were able to find a common ground. This one, we had to use the translator and it was very funny. I was just laughing myself all the time, because I'm using a translator to make an Instagram video about fencing. It was just the most niche weird thing that I've had done enough until that point.

[0:46:27] BW: That's awesome.

[0:46:29] AS: It did well. He's an Olympic champion, a legend in that Bay world. Just getting him to be a part of that series was awesome.

[0:46:36] BW: Yeah. You know there's going to be some engagement there. Well, all right, this has been a lot of fun and thanks for sharing your story and your insights and all the different hats that you wear within fencing; athlete, coach, mentor, storyteller, creator. If you want to follow along with Ari's journey, be sure to follow him on Instagram @AriSimmons. We talked about The Direct Elimination Podcast, which you can find on your favorite platforms. Yeah, we'll be cheering you on as you continue your senior team pursuits and thank you so much, Ari, for joining us.

[0:47:08] AS: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Whether or not you guys listen to our podcast, or check out my channel, I just highly, highly, highly recommend taking care of your mental health and being inspired by what you do and the people around you finding as good a role model as you can and really not being scared to ask questions and show that vulnerability. It's about being tough when you're on the strip. Being tough when you're off the strip doesn't help anyone, unless you don't need the help. Really, it's important to reach out when you do need the help and resources are significantly more available than people have realized.

[0:47:50] BW: Yeah, that's great advice to leave it on. Ari, thank you so much.

[0:47:54] AS: Thank you, Bryan. Take care.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:47:56] BW: Thanks for listening to First of 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. We'll be back with our next conversation in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can stay up to date on all the latest fencing news by following us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you like this podcast, please help us grow and reach more people by leaving us a rating, or review. Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell, and I hope to see you real soon out on the strip. Bye.

[END]